


I Never Had To Learn To Love You (Like I Learned To Love The Bomb)

by skyline



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angie outdrinks everybody and their mothers, F/M, Howard learns how to play nice with others, Jack cooks at five am, Jarvis finds the total domestication of his boss hilarious, M/M, Peggy cheats at monopoly and is also terrifying, Sousa steals tools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 09:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5243075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens is, Howard forgets the importance of personal space.</p><p>(Or, who says Tony Stark was the first person to invite all his friends to live in his mansion?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Never Had To Learn To Love You (Like I Learned To Love The Bomb)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been saying I wanted to try my hand at another Agent Carter fic, but I had zero ideas. 
> 
> Then I sat down at my computer this morning in class, and bam. This happened. That is literally my only explanation. Read at your own risk.

What happens is, Howard forgets the importance of personal space.

He never had enough of it, growing up. His apartment on the Lower East Side barely had room for the oxygen that filled it, much less he and his parents. And no matter how many times his mother called it _cozy_ , it didn’t change the fact that the closeness was smothering, too much, all the time.

Love doesn’t mean much when you’re tripping over each other’s feet.

By the time he hit it rich, Howard was well acquainted with claustrophobia, and how completely _insane_ it makes him. It’s why he likes the echoing hallways and opulence of big, breezy mansions.

Like the big, breezy mansion he’s sitting in, where currently, every single available surface seems to be _occupied_.

“Do the thing, the voice,” Angie Martinelli urges, watching Peggy with big, adoring doe eyes. Howard’s not even sure why Angie’s here, but that doesn’t stop her from filling a big, big spot on the mansion floor, a checkered blanket spread with hard cheeses, crackers, and a wine glass splayed in front of her.

“I hate the voice,” Peggy protests. “It makes me sound like a simpering fool.”

“If the shoe fits,” Jack says, and Howard doesn’t care _what_ Peggy says, the man is just not that bright.

Jack seems to figure that out on his own when one of Peggy’s heels hits him square in the face. She punctuates it with a sweet, “I’m sorry darling, I missed what you said. What was that?”

Howard ducks his head, trying not to gloat. Peggy’s not overly fond of gloaters. She’s not really overly fond of anything other than truth, justice, and polishing her gun, so for the most part, Howard doesn’t take it personally.

“Nothing,” Jack grumbles, cradling his whiskey protectively. His eye’s going to turn black, but hey, as long as the hooch is okay. “Nothing at all.”

Sousa pats his shoulder, because oh, yeah, that’s right. They’re both taking up all the cushions on Howard’s _favorite_ couch. He abruptly remembers why he’s so grumpy.

“You’re making a face,” a voice murmurs in his ear, “Sir.”

“Remind me again why I invited them all to live here?”

There’s a soft snort. Then, “Teamwork. Camaraderie. I believe that was how it went.”

“But they’re touching my stuff,” Howard whines, peeking at Jarvis out of the corner of his peripherals.

Of course Jarvis is completely unruffled; he has the nerve to look amused. _Amused_ , like Howard’s adopted a litter of unruly kittens rather than having his home invaded by unruly SSR officers.

“Please do the voice?” Angie prompts again, lip curling into a pout.

This time Peggy caves, because her weaknesses, much like Howard’s, include starstruck, pretty girls. She pushes her forehead into her palm, dark curls spilling over her shoulders. “Okay, okay. But I need a volunteer.”

Jack brandishes his high ball glass in one hand and Peggy’s strappy shoe in the other, glowering. Sousa purses his lips to keep from laughing, but makes no move to leap to his feet. Howard supposes that’s probably because he’s got an entire bottle of wine all to himself, balanced carefully in his lap. The burgundy sloshes every time Jack gets his knickers in a twist.

Peggy cuts her eyes towards Howard and Jarvis, and even though it’s rare that Howard flees the spotlight, he’s not enamored with this particular role. He lets Peggy step past him to grab for Jarvis’s wrist.

Mildly, Jarvis says, “I must protest.”

“Protest for an audience,” Peggy retorts.

Mercilessly, she drags him to the center of Howard’s living room, where the radio is crackling with the _Captain America Adventure Hour_. Jarvis is all long limbs and feeble objections, but he’s got enough sense not to really fight a lady with a thigh holster, and Peggy has two.

She slips out of her other shoe, bare-stockinged on the plush Persian carpet, right in front of the mantle. Then she strikes a pose like a silent movie star, one hand limp against her forehead. Peggy declares, “Captain, the Nazis are coming!”

Peggy, Jack, and Sousa dissolve into laughter, Jack’s a little meaner than the others’.

For an agent, he has little to no self-preservation instinct.

Howard ignores the ache in his stomach when Jarvis steps forward and shouts – in the worst imitation of an American accent to have ever graced the surface of the Earth – “Never fear, Betty! We’ll save the day.”

Angie jumps up to don the mantle of the villainous Baron Zemo, who in a surprising turn of events, kidnaps Cap instead of Betty Carver. It’s right around the time that Jarvis is wrapped in the Persian rug, struggling in front of the fireplace, that Howard decides he is not nearly drunk enough for this.

He tries to wrestle the bottle of wine from Sousa, but he’s a lot stronger than he looks, and Howard has the good grace to know better than to let his underlings see him taken down by Sousa’s pinky finger.

He makes a strategic retreat into the cellar to grab another bottle, but that’s a terrible idea, because Howard maybe…possibly…can’t remember exactly where it is.

This seems like an oversight on his part, but he refuses to be embarrassed, because normally, he has hired help to fetch his bottles. It’s not his fault said hired help got roped into playing the Star Spangled Man with No Plan for the night. It’s not, but he’s still forced to grab the crystal bottle of expensive whiskey he keeps in the kitchen instead, because no way is he admitting to his team that he doesn’t know the layout of his own mansion. The ridicule would be completely disproportionate.

Howard’s a busy man, okay?

By the time he gets back with a rocks glass in hand, Betty is using her wits and feminine wile to rescue the brave super solider cum Jarvis, although why her rescue plan includes a twostep dance around Howard’s three sofas, Angie giggling all the while, completely escapes Howard.

At that point, though, he doesn’t much mind. The mansion feels smaller with this many people, less like the ghosts of old soldiers might walk the halls. Peggy seems happy in a way she rarely is, especially if Cap’s name is involved, and even though Howard doesn’t know Jack or Sousa or Angie very well, he admires the way they make his best girl smile.

He will never, ever, ever call Peggy his best girl out loud, because she can probably castrate him with a look, and she’d do it without ever waiting to find out that Howard means this; she’s his longest-held, closest friend. Inviting her to reboot the SSR’s governing hierarchy after the President approached him is probably one of the few ideas Howard’s ever had that he won’t regret later.

Unlike asking her and her minions to move while they get the agency back off the ground. Howard is decently sure he’s going to regret that in a big way. He watches Angie wheel his rug-wrapped butler around the living room while Peggy gives chase, calling out, “Halt, _villain_!” in a voice three octaves higher than her own.

Jarvis looks nauseous.

Howard doesn’t save him.

Instead, he plops his body between Jack and Sousa on the couch, interrupting their shoving match over the Yankees. They say the best way to make friends is to dive right in, so he proclaims, “You’re both wrong. The Dodgers are a shoe-in for the series. Idiots.”

They don’t kick his ass, and they don’t treat him like their boss, either, both crowding in on him with dissent on their lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Howard can see Peggy stop in her tracks, casting a soft smile his way, and he doesn’t even have to look to know that Jarvis is wearing the same grin, albeit tinged with green.

It’s almost like they’re proud of him, or something, like Howard’s a shared child they’re trying to socialize. Which, no, not kosher, he’s the master of this house, and an award winning scientist, and also he had perfectly capable parents once upon a time.

Still, it’s nice to have them both there, all the noise and closeness. It’s not as claustrophobic as he first thought; maybe it’s even cozy. Howard guess asking them all to move in wasn’t the worst idea.

* * *

 

It was the _worst_ idea.

“Agent Thompson, it’s five am.”

“Excellent observation, Stark.”

“No, but. I don’t think you understand. It’s five am.”

“In the morning,” Jack agrees cheerily.

“You’re banging pots and pans. Loudly. In my kitchen. At five am.” Howard considers for a moment, and then adds, “In the _morning_.”

“Nothing gets past you.” Jack holds up a frying pan brimming with eggs, showing Howard the goods. He also appears to be making something to the side that looks like juice. Howard isn’t even sure what the contraption the juice is in _is_. “Must be why you’re paid the big bucks.”

“What is that?” Howard asks, pointing to the metal thing that seems to be murdering an orange.

“Juice press.”

Jack makes an expression like, _rich boy_ , and it’s completely unfair. Howard has been in kitchens before. It’s just that his childhood kitchen barely had more than a whisk and a broiling pan, and now Jarvis stocks everything he owns. Which is beyond the point.

“I don’t understand,” Howard starts again. Helplessly, he throws his hands up in the air. “The sun’s not even up.”

This gets Jack to pause and ask, “Are you having a stroke?”

Howard balls his hands into fists. “Just. I’m sleeping. Which is what people do at five am. Maybe keep it down there, slugger?”

Jack eyes his clothes, the same from last night, and well. It’s a little bit of a lie, the sleeping thing. Howard was in bed. In fact, he’d just crawled on top of it when the heard the very first clang of metal.

But it wasn’t what Jack thought, probably. There weren’t any lady friends wandering the mansion, ready to start a scandal. He’d had an idea, was all. An idea that he needed to work on until the sky began to lighten and his brain was _this ready_ to shut off.

Jarvis never judges him for that.

Then again, Jarvis has adjoining quarters to the mansion, and doesn’t actually get to see Howard pushing himself to the point of exhaustion every single night. He knows about it, sure, but all he does is purse his lips and keep whatever unwaveringly English insult he’s harboring mum.

Jack has no such compulsions. “You’re not as young as you used to be.”

“Thanks for the memo.”

Completely undeterred, he adds, “You might want to start getting some beauty rest.”

“Are you implying I’m less than beautiful?” Howard wonders.

Jack shrugs. “Those bags under your eyes aren’t doing you any favors.”

“You’re right. Wouldn’t want to hurt the money maker,” Howard agrees. “However will I find me a man?”

“That is the universal question.”

Jack starts doing something incredibly elaborate with salt, pepper, and some sort of red sauce. The eggs smell divine, or they would, if Howard’s stomach wasn’t protesting that bedtime was not eating time. As it is, he has to fight to keep that last cup of coffee down.

He asks, “So wait, are you going to be quiet now?”

Casting a glance back over his shoulder, Jack merely grins.

* * *

“I can’t take it,” Howard tells Jarvis. “I might murder them all.”

Jarvis, to his credit, manages to keep his frame still and laughter free. “Sir, if I might? It’s only been a day.”

“A day too long.”

“Perhaps you could take some time to…adjust.”

“Are you saying I’m not adaptable?” Howard pouts. “Because I am too adaptable.”

“Perish the thought,” Jarvis replies dryly. “I’m saying you never were all that adept at…sharing.”

“Perks of being an only child.” Howard considers Jarvis’s dark suit, impeccable as always. He clearly wasn’t woken by the clatter of kitchen torture instruments at an ungodly hour in the morning. He probably got sex. From his wife. Who Howard basically tries to pretend doesn’t exist, most days. He asks, “Say, did you know that we owned a juice press?”

“I may recall the purchase,” Jarvis replies. He’s so nonchalant, about all of this. Like it’s not his house that’s being invaded, or his kitchen that’s being overrun.

Howard resents him.

Quietly, because the last time he made a fuss at Jarvis, Jarvis refused to take his clothes for washing for a month. There was a smell involved.

It was not a pleasant smell.

He accuses (albeit meekly), “I don’t remember you ever making me juice.”

Jarvis smirks, the smallest, most impolite thing, and oh, Howard loves it when he gets him to be _naughty_. “I don’t remember buying the press for you.”

* * *

Peggy is in the gym, teaching Angie hand-to-hand combat skills.

Howard watches with near tangible interest, because there is nothing he likes better than two attractive ladies sweating and punching each other. He imagines Steve would have something incredibly disparaging about the state of his chivalry, but Steve is dead, so he doesn’t get a say.

Dodging to the left, Peggy sweeps Angie’s feet out from beneath her. She lands on the mats with a pained exhalation, followed by a fit of laughter. Howard’s still a little wary about allowing Peg to convince him that Angie can be an agent. She’s an automat waitress, and an _actress_. Howard’s bedded his fair share of both, and none of his conquests had been all that interested in serving their country.

But Angie seems different. She’s quick on her feet, and happy to learn. Peggy usually has good instincts about these things.

It helps that they were training in secret, at one of Howard’s other residences before the call to reform the SSR came in. He has about eighteen houses across the continental United States, and three in Hawaii, so it only seemed fair that someone benefitted from it all.

He wonders how Peggy feels about the move, about the five of them, and Jarvis, piled on top of one another. Howard knows he can ask, but it’s so much more fun to let any residual umbrage of Peggy’s build up until she goes completely postal, like a firecracker with a lit wick.

Jack Thompson’s probably not the only one with a death wish.

“Howard,” Angie calls, waving him over.

She’s got a big, toothy grin, still a kid where it counts. Peggy, by contrast, is entirely subdued, but it’s clear that she expects Howard to make his way over. So he does, sauntering a bit, because he knows it drives Peggy wild when he acts like he hasn’t got a care in the world. “I see we’re making progress.”

“I can punch a man now,” Angie replies. She emphasizes it by curling her fingers into a fist, swinging wildly into the air. She misses her target of nothing and lands her fist squarely in Howard’s shoulder, which, she was not joking. She can punch now.

“Ow,” Howard gasps. Calmly, because he’s trying not to show that inside he’s _crying_.

Peggy is not fooled. Peggy is entirely too competent at everything she does.

“Oops.” Angie wrinkles her nose in apology. “I’m still working on the aiming.”

“Please do,” Howard replies, rubbing his bruise. “You beckoned?”

“Peggy said you trained with Captain America.”

“So did she.” Howard nods towards her with a tinge of pride. “I would call what Steve and I did training, though, exactly.”

“He wiped the floor with Howard,” Peggy supplies. Ever helpful, she is.

“Do you still practice?” Angie asks.

Howard thinks of fire-lit nights with Steve, learning the complicated choreography of a fight, footwork and hands always in front of his face, and the impact of his tailbone against dirt. Steve’s too-blue eyes danced with delight every time he helped Howard pick himself back up. And if there was one thing Howard learned from Captain America, it was the importance of always picking yourself back up.

“Not anymore.”

“Jarvis doesn’t take you for a spin?” Peggy seems surprised. “He’s quite good.”

It’s true. Howard picked Jarvis up off the monotonous service of a general who was vastly underutilizing his talents. He’d been a foot solider before his eye for detailed marked him as an ideal aide. Commendations out the wazoo and everything.

“High praise.” Howard tells Angie, “Peg was in the Armed Forces Special Air Service. That’s British-speak for special forces.”

“That’s my girl,” Angie beams. “I knew you were special, English.”

“The special-est agent we’ve got. Until you surpass her, kid.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get that good.” Angie doesn’t look terribly wrecked about it. She’s obnoxiously upbeat; Howard wonders if this is what people think when they talk to him.

Couldn’t be. He’s a delight.

“Do try to keep in shape, Howard,” Peggy advises.

“Scared I won’t be able to keep up with you anymore?”

She laughs. “You already can’t keep up with me.” After a beat, she continues, “I’m worried you’ll get fat.”

“That is an outrage,” Howard splutters. “It is physically impossible for me to get fat!”

Angie grins. “Money where your mouth is, Stark.”

And that’s how he gets roped into training to be a secret agent.

Howard hates having housemates.

* * *

 

He’s sweaty and exhausted and considering kicking the whole lot of them out on the street.

Except Jarvis keeps telling him _no_.

“It wouldn’t be polite, Sir.”

“Politeness isn’t exactly a trait I’m well known for,” Howard throws back. He’s sprawled across the divan in his room, watching Jarvis fold his clothes. Speaking of underutilizing his talents. “I doubt it’d ruin my reputation.”

“Granted,” Jarvis allows. “But it might sour your relationship with Agent Carter.”

Agent Carter has just given Howard an incredibly unseemly bruise on his butt, so he’s not especially worried about preserving their friendship, thanks. He tells Jarvis so, but all he gets in response is a supremely disapproving glower.

“Fine. I won’t kick them out. Happy, prissy pants?”

Serenely, Jarvis replies, “I grow exponentially happier by the day.”

Bully for him.

* * *

 

They go on missions, of course, because that’s the entire point of this.

As chairman of the board, Howard rarely, if ever gets invited along. The situation only warrants it if his technical expertise is needed; he’s useless with a gun.

That’s what Peggy says, after trying to teach him to shoot, anyway. Jack says he’s not half bad, but Jack spends every one of their training sessions eating peanuts and snickering to himself until Peggy stomps on her hat and marches away.

 _Infuriating man_ is her favorite insult for Howard, and he doesn’t know if she realizes he takes it as a compliment.

Anyway, Howard doesn’t always get to go on the missions, but he keeps an eye on things. He watches when Sousa’s leg is giving him trouble, or Jack’s on a power trip, or Angie’s fumbling with her rookie nerves. He keeps the closest watch over Peggy, because she has yet to break herself of her penchant for running off without backup. It’s not a habit he loves.

It’s not because Peggy isn’t capable. She is, more than any woman – more than any person – Howard has ever met.

Part of it’s the voice of Steve Rogers in his head, asking him to protect her, even though Steve never asked Howard any such thing. The other part of it, the bigger part of it, is his own neuroses.

Peggy’s one of his oldest and dearest friends.

Sometimes he thinks she might be his only friend.

If he loses her because she didn’t have something as simple as backup, Howard knows he’d never forgive himself. Besides. When there’s danger, nobody should go it alone.

That’s some advice Steve Rogers really did give him.

So every time Peggy says that she’s in a rush, that the mission demands action _now_ and there’s no one else to help, Howard turns to the only other person who’s always had his own back.

He tells Peggy, “Bring Jarvis with you.”

* * *

 

Sousa is clearly the least irritating of the SSR agent slumber party that Howard’s hosting for all of eternity. He’s got the quiet reserve of a soldier, in stark contrast to Jack’s cripplingly annoying arrogance.

Not that Howard’s _against_ arrogance. It’s basically self-confidence that other people don’t like, and having a healthy dose of it has done wonders for Howard’s own career. It’s just, you know. The way Jack wears arrogance makes Howard want to knock his teeth out.

A little.

Sousa seems to share that opinion the vast majority of the time, so one would think that he and Howard would get along like wildfire. And maybe he would if he’d _stop touching_ Howard’s tools.

“How many times do I have to tell you this?” Howard demands, very close to losing his composure. There are few things he loves in this world, but his tools make the shortlist. He doesn’t even let Jarvis touch them, and Jarvis handles his _underwear_.

“Probably eight more times,” Sousa replies from underneath the carriage of his beat-up junker of a car.

Watching on from the curb, Jack calls, “Maybe seven if you say it real slow and sexy.”

He’s got a newspaper folded on his lap, and Howard is reasonably certain he was reading Sousa the comic strips before Howard barged in, looking for his socket wrench.

Which is currently in Sousa’s hand, obscured from view beneath a car that costs less than what Howard earns in an hour.

The amount of how much he can’t cope with this grows considerably larger by the day.

Howard takes a deep, slow breath. That’s what Jarvis forces him to do when they’re running through mediation exercises. Howard is crap at mediation, but he figures the tranquility will kick in one of these days.

Today is not that day. “Can you at least ask before digging around in my garage?”

“I could,” Sousa concedes. “But then we’d never have these little chats.”

Jack thrums the newspaper against his knee, agreeing, “They never fail to brighten up our day.”

Howard presses his fingers against his eye sockets. He feels a stress headache coming on.

“If you want to have a conversation, you’re welcome in my workshop anytime, boys.”

“The last time I came to your workshop, you tried to introduce my face to a blowtorch,” Jack tells him. He doesn’t sound particularly upset about it, but the man was in Iwo Jima. It wasn’t like Howard managed to so much as singe him.

Sousa pipes in, “I came to ask you about paperwork and you threatened to make me a bionic leg.”

“That was a serious offer.” Howard’s making real progress in the world of bionic limbs. The military is after his tech. Sousa is just ungrateful, is what he is. “Besides, both of those times, I was doing extremely delicate work on circuitry. I was distracted.”

That may or may not be true. He’s chased Agent Thompson around with that blowtorch at least twice.

Sliding out from the car’s underside, Sousa sits up. He’s got grease on his face and the closest thing he ever gets to a grin on his face. He offers up the wrench with casual grace, like it was his to borrow in the first place. “Didn’t even put a dent in it.”

Deep breaths.

Calming breaths.

Howard is never going to get this mediation thing down.

* * *

 

“Sir,” Jarvis says, guiding him gently into an overstuffed chair. His fingers begin to massage the places where Howard’s skull is screwed onto his neck, the juncture between his throat and his collarbone, and the wings of his shoulder blades. “You’re letting them get to you.”

“They’re not _housebroken_ ,” Howard moans. “They’re unruly, and lack manners, and Angie keeps eating all of the cheese, have you noticed that? I imported that cheese from France, and she ate three pounds of it. How d’you think she stays so thin?”

“The rest of her diet consists of sarcasm and wine?”

Howard makes a discontent noise. “How did Peggy find these people?”

“I imagine the same way she found you?”

“Working on a highly confidential government project?”

He can practically hear Jarvis’s patronizing smile.

“Oh, alright, that explains Agents Sousa and Thompson, but I know Angie was a waitress.”

“You have something against waitress now?”

“No! Waitresses are great. They provide me with sustenance. Except for this one.” Howard folds his arms across his chest, sinking back into Jarvis’s deft touch. “She eats all my cheese.”

“Howard,” Jarvis intones, and it’s only there in the quiet of the lounge that he’s letting his servile demeanor drop away. Howard wishes he’d do that more often. He’s always loved the way Jarvis says his name, fond and exasperated, like he is something very, very dear. “Don’t create a hostile work environment.”

“I’ve never heard you complain.”

Jarvis chuckles. “I can’t imagine you’d listen if I did.”

Howard reaches back, catching his hand. He twines their fingers for the briefest of moments, murmuring, “I’d listen. I would.”

“I know,” Jarvis replies, squeezing Howard’s shoulder. “You always have.”

* * *

 

The best part about their new living arrangement is that now, when Howard has to show off the SSR’s board of directors, he has them all in one place. This is especially useful tonight, when Sousa refuses to put on a tuxedo and Angie decides she wants to take about, oh, three hours pinning up Peggy’s hair.

“She’s gonna look like a movie star when I’m done,” she assures Howard, who has been ready for over an hour.

He’s never ready. Punctuality is not a thing that has ever applied to him. So how is this even happening?

Feeling very much like he’s herding a pack of precocious puppies, he says, “Peggy looks beautiful. Peggy always looks beautiful. Don’t give me that look, Margaret, it’s true.”

The look in question was a twist of Peggy’s lips that indicated Howard’s compliments were both unwelcome and highly suspect. It transforms into a new thing when he calls her Margaret. It transforms into something exactly resembling homicidal rage.

Angie interrupts Howard’s potential murder by shoving a bobby pin between Peggy’s lips. “Hold that for me, won’t you?”

Jack, in a surprising show of sensibility, is actually prepared. He’s nursing a whiskey on Howard’s favorite couch, which has somehow been repurposed into Jack and Sousa’s favorite couch. Howard can’t quite recall the last time he got a go at it.

He misses the cushions. He’s not sure that cushions are something a person can legitimately miss, or if he’s being ridiculous, but it’s probably a combination of both.

“Jarvis,” Howard pleads. “We’re an hour late.”

“Right.” Jarvis straightens from where he’s been leaning against the banister, watching the proceedings like they are better than any film he’s ever seen. He claps his hands briskly. “Time to go.”

Angie sighs, brushing a last strand of Peggy’s hair away from her forehead. “Good thing you’re all done.”

“Where’s Agent Sousa?” Peggy asks, scanning the room.

She does look beautiful, like she could waltz off a plane in California and right onto the silver screen. Angie works some kind of magic.

“Still not wearing a tux,” he announces from the entrance to the kitchen.

Howard’s got a string of insults on the ready, but Jarvis cuts in before he can let loose with a single one of them. “A suit and tie will have to do. The car is waiting.”

Obediently, Howard and his agents file out the front door, where a long, sleek limousine is parked. Sousa whistles. “Nice digs.”

“It’s nice having a sugar daddy,” Angie agrees, winking at Howard. He doesn’t even get to be cross, because she’s already jostling Jack for the first step inside, while Peggy holds the door open for them both.

“Ever the patient gentlemen,” Howard hears Jarvis tell her. She grins, and doesn’t elbow him, which is so unfair. If Howard said anything like it, he’d be face-first in the snow by now.

He watches as she clambers in the back after Sousa, and then follows Jarvis to the front seats. He says, “I think they’re going to give me a heart attack.”

Jarvis nods slightly, his poker face in full force. But what he says is, “Don’t worry, Sir. I imagine the drink will get you first.”

* * *

 

The problem with Jarvis is that he’s married.

He wasn’t, before, when he was a fresh faced soldier who found Howard equal parts interesting and rude. He’d told Howard that, once, at a pub in London, where the floors were covered in sawdust and the beer tasted warm and flat.

“You’re quite uncouth,” Jarvis had slurred, already more pints in than he’d probably bargained for. “But you fascinate me.”

Howard had run a hand over his bicep, confessing, “You fascinate me too.”

It was true. He came to visit Jarvis more often than he should have in those early days of fighting, enchanted by his looks, his wit, and entranced by the snobbish quality of his constant rejections.

“Too bold, Mr. Stark,” he’d admonished then, in that pub. He hadn’t moved though.

Howard always remembers that, the way he never moved away.

Of course, right after that, the war kicked up, going from a tiny scuffle to a full-fledged firefight. Howard met Steve.

Howard lost Steve.

By the time Jarvis gravitated back into his life, it was because Howard was jailbreaking him from a military prison, listening to him babble on about a woman named Anna. Where before, being around him had felt like possibility, now there was only a brick wall between them and a puzzle to solve.

He took care of it, because that’s what Howard does. He takes care of things, and people.

He takes care of the people he loves.

* * *

 

“Care to take a spin?” Angie asks Howard, her glittering evening dress catching the light from the chandelier.

“I’d be delighted,” he replies, taking her extended hand. He expects Angie to lead him onto the dance floor almost immediately, but instead she’s glancing back and forth between Agents Thompson and Sousa, who seem to be pretty absorbed in a conversation with Peggy.

Probably about stabbing dead things with sticks, or whatever it is that secret agents like to do. Peggy appears to be making some kind of topographical map of Sweden with the wine glasses, so there’s a clue.

Howard practically has to man handle Angie onto the dance floor, which is really not a thing he prefers to do with women, especially because it means she steps on his toes no fewer than three times. Finally, he hisses, “What on earth are you doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out if Peggy’s interested in Jack or Sousa,” she admits, breaking her reconnaissance. “It’s an ongoing bet I have. With myself.”

That’s. Bizarre, is what that is. Peggy’s personal life is completely her own. Besides, Howard questions, “Who says she’s interested in either of them?”

“Maybe she’s not.” Angie gives him one of her patented carefree smiles. She’s so endearingly earnest. “But if she is, I want to be prepared. It’s going to take me at least a year to write my maid of honor speech.”

“An entire year?”

Howard thinks about cracking a joke about literacy, or the lack there of. Then Angie says, “It has to be perfect. Like Peggy,” and he can’t bring himself to say a single word.

These people might be weird. These people are weird.

But Peggy better know how lucky she is to have them in her life.

Howard guesses he is too.

* * *

 

Well. They’re still not in his life, in the most official sense.

Mostly because he refuses to attend weekly reenactments of the Captain America Adventure Hour, or board games afterwards. That’s last bit’s because Jack and Peggy both cheat.

He doesn’t join them for breakfast much, either. He’s got projects all over the place, and a hectic work schedule, and it’s not like they’re always underfoot. Peggy’s practically running the SSR, and Jack and Sousa work as full time agents, while Angie’s still finding her sea legs. There’s actually not a lot of overlap in their schedules.

Which is why he should probably start seeking them out more, according to Jarvis, but Jarvis has taken to attending Friday night pub crawls with the lot of them. Traitor.

He says Angie can drink every single person there under the table, no matter the bar. Howard’s not even a little bit surprised.

She’s still eating all of his imported cheese.

He does manage to drag himself to the tri-weekly sparring sessions with her and Peggy, because he thinks Peggy would feasibly castrate him if he skipped.

Plus, his slacks were a little tight at the last gala he attended.

He’s surprised when he shows up one afternoon, and Jarvis is there, wearing these outlandish shorts that are absolutely not his. Howard knows this because they are Jack’s, and he knows that because he and Jack have somehow become jogging buddies.

Howard is opposed to both jogging and exercise in general, so he’s not sure how exactly it happened. One morning he was complaining about Jack’s complete violation of his morning nap, and the next he was eating a protein-filled plate of eggs and being goaded into racing around the neighborhood. The man is very persuasive.

“Jarvis?” Howard asks, cocking an eyebrow at the shorts.

Jarvis is unamused. “I borrowed them from Agent Thompson. He was very insistent that I couldn’t wear…well, anything I owned.”

“He makes a valid point,” Angie says, leaning into Peggy’s side.

Peggy snorts, the sound decidedly unladylike. She buries it in Angie’s hair.

Jarvis looks like he might throw a tantrum, which would be magnificent, in Howard’s opinion, but instead he slumps his shoulders and asks, “Where should we start?”

When she recovers, Peggy defers right back to Jarvis, inquiring, “Shall we work on throws?”

“Only if I can work with Mr. Stark,” Jarvis replies, and it sounds like a threat.

“What did I do?” He asks. No one sees fit to give him an answer.

With a smirk, Peggy says, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

* * *

 

Howard does not like sparring. He didn’t actually love it with Steve, even when he kissed the bruises away afterwards, and he definitely does not like it with Jarvis, who is approaching the task with an undue amount of glee.

“Is there a reason I’m being picked on?” He begs of Angie when his butt hits the ground for the umpteenth time.

She’s in the midst of gamely picking herself up, squaring her shoulders to face Peggy. When she’s spares Howard a glance, it’s to say easily, “Sure. You’re the weakest link.”

Howard glares.

“I can make you all homeless, you know.” No one listens. He frowns at Jarvis, who isn’t even trying to help him get up. “You. You I can fire.”

Jarvis does not take the threat for the serious matter it is. Instead he says, “Were you planning to go another round, Sir? Or do you surrender?”

Well, that can’t stand. Howard Stark does not _surrender_.

* * *

 

Anna does. Somewhere in between the super-secret missions that Jarvis can’t tell her about and the knowledge that danger is something that her husband lives and breathes, she decides she can’t take it anymore. She walks off Howard’s property with her bags and her hat, and Howard, at least, never sees her again.

Jarvis handles it with customary stoicism.

It makes Howard miss that solider in the pub, the one that told him off. That solider, Howard thinks, probably would have cried.

* * *

 

Strangers, as a rule, stop being strangers once you’ve seen their morning hair, and if that’s the case then Howard isn’t sure what to call the rambunctious SSR agents running around his house.

It’s making it very difficult for him to decide whether to yell or kick them all out on the street, because Sousa has just blown up his oven.

Sousa didn’t do it on purpose, Howard thinks. Howard hopes. What he did was decide to help Jack bake a pie, and that turned out to be a terrible idea. Sousa has no idea how to cook, and predictably, Jack was too preoccupied congratulating himself on being superior to all of mankind to be a decent friend and keep an eye out.

The end result is that Howard’s kitchen is in flames.

Angie and Peggy are standing at the edge of the former kitchen, surrounded by firefighters.

They’re both wrapped in robes because, with typical Jack Thompson flare, the incident occurred right during the pre-dawn hours. Howard hasn’t even gone to sleep yet, his forearms slick with engine grease, reading glasses perched upon his nose.

He’s trying to work up the energy to be upset, but it seems like Jarvis has already beaten Howard to the punch. He’s been delivering Jack and Sousa both a real tirade of a lecture for the better part of twenty minutes.

“-the complete and utter lack of _responsibility_ -“

It makes sense. The kitchen was pretty much Jarvis’s safe place before Howard invited the SSR into their home.

“-absolutely horrified that you could-“

But it also doesn’t make sense. Howard’s filthy rich. He’ll buy himself a new kitchen, with shinier toys for Jarvis and Jack to play with. He watches Jarvis, who is more disheveled than Howard has ever seen him, even back in the war. He watches the tension in his shoulders and the purple-blue under his eyes.

He must really love this kitchen.

“-you should be ashamed of yourselves that you even _thought_ to-“

The conclusion Howard reaches is that yeah, this probably isn’t about the kitchen. He steps up to Jarvis’s side and touches his arm. Jack and Sousa watch them both with doleful eyes.

“I think they get the point there, buddy.”

Jarvis frowns down at him, dry-eyed, but furious. “Everything’s ruined.”

“No it’s not.” Howard shrugs. “I’ll fix it.”

“Howard,” he says, dropping all pretense of servitude. He gestures at the walls, the oven, the formerly pristine sink. Jarvis’s eyes are sad and desperate as he takes it all in. “You can’t.”

Howard reaches down and takes Jarvis’s hand. He links their fingers together and squeezes.

“Sure I can,” he promises. “I’ll fix it.”

Jarvis does not pull away.

* * *

 

“You know you’re driving Agent Carter mad?”

“I can’t help it,” Howard protests. “The target keeps moving, or something.”

Indulgently, Jarvis says, “Sir. It doesn’t move.”

“You don’t know that. You weren’t here. You didn’t see it.”

“It’s inanimate.”

“Prove it.” Howard is not sulking. He’s not, but maybe he is, because it’s humiliating that he can’t figure this out. He figures everything out! He’s a veritable genius!

Or not. Peggy’s basically given up on him.

“It would help, I think, if you tried to breathe.”

“I’m always breathing, Jarvis.”

“Think of those exercises we practiced,” he suggests.

“The meditation? It doesn’t work. I still want to punch Agent Thompson in the face. Daily.”

“He threw peanuts at you again?”

“Just the shells.” Howard slumps back against the wall leading to the repurposed great hall. Repurposed because he decided making it into a shooting gallery was a hell of a lot less work than trudging over to the one in midtown. It’s also a hell of a lot less embarrassing; Peggy can neither berate him in front of perfect strangers while Jack laughs, nor provide him with a bloody death on the subway home.

She gets to do the berating and the murdering in private, here.

Jarvis takes him by the shoulders and turns him back towards the gallery. “Why don’t you and I give it a go?”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“I think you’ll never learn if you don’t keep trying.”

“Why do I even need to know how to shoot, anyway? Missiles are guided, drinks are poured, and women don’t have a trigger,” Howard moans.

Jarvis laughs under his breath. “It’s an embarrassment. A man who makes weapons for a living – who has developed some of the most advanced targeting systems the world has ever seen – is shit at using weapons?”

“Why, Jarvis. I do believe you’ve said an impolite word.”

He says, “Aside from _that fact_ …I can’t protect you forever.”

“Why not?” Howard asks. “Where are you going?”

He means it. He can’t imagine a single scenario in which Jarvis wouldn’t be there, at his side; mothering him, bullying him, guarding him from harm. Not just because he pays for the service, but because…it’s Jarvis. He’s there. It’s what he does.

Jarvis doesn’t flinch away from the question. He says, “What if you get kidnapped? What if I’m on a mission with Miss Carter? What if I leave?”

Howard swallows. He asks, “Are you going to leave, Mr. Jarvis?”

Jarvis’s dark eyes follow the motion of his throat. He says, “No. I don’t think I will, Mr. Stark.”

* * *

 

Between all the secret agents he’s got in his hair, Howard’s going to be fitter than he was when he was eighteen. Even his skin looks healthier.

It’s unsettling.

So he decides to skip town for a few weeks. First on a trip to the tropics with a leggy brunette, and then with a blonde in a Parisian penthouse. He gets to eat all the cheese he wants, no one makes him exercise, and he brings his favorite toolbox with him, so that Sousa can’t touch it. It’s the ideal vacation.

Only, apparently housemates get mad when you don’t tell them you’re fleeing the premises. That’s what Howard presumes prompts the cold shoulder that everyone from Sousa to Angie gives him when he steps foot in the house again.

And he doesn’t like it. It’s _lonely_ being ignored.

Even Jarvis is a little stiff, although of everyone on the grounds, he should be the most used to Howard’s impromptu trips. So Howard does what he does best, working on new tech without ever once thinking about the people it might be used to kill.

They’re bad guys, he tells himself, if the question ever arises. He doesn’t think about the time he became death, destroyer of worlds, or how many people died that weren’t _bad guys_. Wars have casualties. That’s something he made his peace with a long time ago.

It takes three weeks and a whole lot of quiet for Howard to soldier up and drag his butt to game night. The radio crackles with life on the mantle, Angie, Jack, Peggy, and Sousa sprawled across the big Persian rug. They’ve each got a glass of wine, firelight playing shadows over their animated faces.

Jack’s been cheating, and Peggy, never one to be outdone, rose to the challenge. Angie and Sousa are so far behind on the board that they might as well give up, but both seem pretty content to keep lazily rolling the dice. It’s a scene out of one of Jarvis’s lifestyle magazines.

It’s nice.

Howard clears his throat. “Mind if I join?”

For a second, the four blank faces that stare up at him are more terrifying than anything else Howard has ever seen, from the atom bomb to Red Skull to the blood drenched fields of France.

Then Peggy recovers – first, because she’s always quicker than anyone else in the room – “Of course.”

Angie scoots over while Sousa pours him a glass of wine. She pats the space between her and Jack, “Come sit right here, sugar.”

Howard does.

Then he proceeds to get completely whooped at monopoly.

Eh. It’d be more embarrassing if he worked in real estate.  

* * *

 

Peggy knew about Howard and Steve, the same way that Howard knew about Steve and Peggy. They shared a mutual, let’s-never-speak-of-this-out-loud agreement that lasted long after his nosedive into arctic waters. In fact, Peggy’s been amazingly good about keeping her nose out of all of Howard’s romantic affairs.

Which is why he’s kind of surprised when she marches into Howard’s workshop – also known as the garage – and asks, “Howard, are you sleeping with Edwin?”

She doesn’t mince words, their Peggy.

“Who’s Edwin?” Howard asks, affronted.

“Mr. Jarvis.”

Howard blinks, hand stilling over the shell casing he’s been studying. “His name’s _not_ Edwin.”

“It certainly is.”

“But that’s a dumb name.”

Peggy does not look even a little fooled by his skillful misdirect. She never buys a single thing that Howard is selling; it’s an aggravating superpower of hers. “Are you, or aren’t you?”

“I’m not. He’s married, Peggy.”

“He was married,” she corrects.

“He was married pretty recently,” Howard adds, for emphasis.

She opens her mouth and then closes her mouth, obviously at a loss on how to broach the subject without encouraging him to be insensitive towards Jarvis’s delicate feelings. The man does have a lot of delicate feelings. She settles on, “He clearly cares for you.”

“I care for him,” Howard replies, because he does. Jarvis is the best; he likes to save spiders from dusty corners and puts up with Howard’s endless parade of women and debauchery, and he makes a mean skillet fajita. Howard depends on him more than he will ever like to dwell on, not when he fought so hard to be self-made and free.

The only the only thing that saves him from doing so is that he knows the feeling is mutual. Jarvis depends on him right back.

“He wasn’t pleased with the way you ran off.”

“He’s my _butler_. He doesn’t get a say in my schedule.”

Peggy’s expression tells Howard that she knows better, and so should he.

Like a petulant child, he ignores it. Maybe that’s why she says, “He thought you were getting better at handling your affairs.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m perfectly capable of handling plenty of things.” Nuclear bombs, for instance. Those are a thing Howard handles. And alien technology definitely makes the cut. Ladies, too. He handles lots of ladies.

That last one probably isn’t what Peggy has in mind. Or maybe, it’s exactly what she does, because Peggy sighs.

“Then perhaps he thought you were growing up.”

Howard has no idea what how to respond to that.

So he doesn’t.

* * *

 

It’s not like he’s never considered the idea of him and Jarvis. He’s got memories of fantasizing entire nights across the European theater, of skin stretched against skin. But it’s all so distant.

What he feels for Jarvis now is complicated, in a way he can’t quite put his finger on. Howard isn’t used to that. He’s brilliant. He builds his own computer. He understands the fundamentals of fission. He is _brilliant_.

But when it comes to Jarvis, he’s just. Confused. Their entire timeline is practically byzantine, punctuated by Howard’s business trips and Jarvis’s war campaigns, and somewhere in between there, Steve, and Anna, and what became of Steve and Anna. Howard’s met other people too, women. He’s fallen in out of love.

It’s been years since he thought that Jarvis was a _possibility_.

Peggy doesn’t know what she’s talking about, he decides.

He’ll spare her that information, because she’s a big, huge know-it-all, and it might hurt her feelings, but in this, Howard is certain.

She’s dead wrong.

* * *

 

Howard goes jogging with Jack because he’s trying, here. Someone needs to give him a gold star for trying.

Trying is the absolute worst, because Jack is in ridiculous shape and runs an eight minute mile. Howard takes forever to catch up with him, back on the steps of the mansion.

“What are you, part cyborg?” He accuses, panting to catch his breath.

“That’s Sousa,” Jack replies sunnily. “How’s the bionic leg going?”

“I’m in the trail phase.”

“He’ll be glad to hear it.”

Sousa’s more likely to murder Howard in his sleep for even mentioning it ever again, but he that’s because he doesn’t know what he’s missing yet.

Jack fetches them both water, and while they stretch the last of the frantic energy out of their legs, their conversation turns to the war. It’s an uncomfortable topic for both of them, but Howard’s always thought that the bravest of men run right into the things they’re scared of. Awkwardness is the mother of letting go, and all that.

Then Jack says, “You worked on the Manhattan Project, didn’t you?”

Howard shrugs. “I tinkered a bit.”

All of his tinkering’s still classified, but Jack has high level clearance. If he asks the right questions, Howard doesn’t mind talking about it.

“How did it feel? When they dropped the bombs?”

Howard tilts his head back, exposing his throat to the winter sun. “You know how parents feel responsible for things their kids do?”

“Sure.”

“And when the kid grows up, they realize that they have to take a step back and let them learn to live with their mistakes?”

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

“All the weapons I’ve ever had a hand in creating? They’re my kids.” Howard closes his eyes, but he can still see the imprint of the sky, the dark shape of clouds moving across his retinas. “Fat Man and Little Boy were all grown up.”

“So you’ve learned to live with it?”

Howard opens his eyes again, frowning at Jack. He says, “No matter how grown up your kid is, you never stop being a parent.”

* * *

 

He gives Sousa a toolbox of his very own for Christmas.

That doesn’t stop Howard from emerging from his house two weeks later in a complete huff, searching for his favorite screw driver.

Sousa’s under the car, alone this time, because Jack’s not all that interested in braving the cold. Howard shouts, “I have a garage for just this reason. Four of them, actually.”

“They’re all filled with crap,” Sousa replies. “And the fresh air does me good.”

“You’ve got an entire set of brand new tools, and yet, I’m missing a screw driver.”

“I like yours better. The grip’s worn in.”

Howard sighs, unrolling the newspaper he brought with him. “D’you want me to read you the headlines?”

He doesn’t bother waiting for an answer.

* * *

 

Angie has her first real mission, with Jack as back up, on the fourth of July. They’re chasing down a man who is working on biological weaponry with alien DNA. The threat of a potential epidemic is massive.

It’s a credit to Peggy’s teaching that the plan to stop it goes off without a hitch. And afterwards, once Angie is riding the high of her first success, Howard breaks out the expensive champagne. Jarvis serves it in delicate stemmed flutes, balancing a silver tray on his arm like he’s never been anything other than Howard’s man, his servant, his butler.

But Howard looks at him and still sees his uniform, pinned with honor. He sees the way Jarvis looked on his wedding day, composed in his formal wear. He practically glowed with Anna by his side.

He whisks the tray away from Jarvis, passing out the drinks. Jarvis’s noise of diffident disappointment is ignored, as Howard spins on his heel and offers him the glass that’s intended for himself.

“I didn’t bring enough.”

Howard gestures behind him, where Angie and Peggy are debriefing, their conversation punctuated with laughter. Sousa is standing near them, beaming with pride, while Jack’s contribution is to add how Angie wasn’t the worst agent he’s ever seen. Probably. “This is your victory too.”

“How so?”

Howard inclines his head to stare up at him. “If it wasn’t for you, I would have kicked them all out on day one.”

“Angie would still be an agent.”

“Probably,” Howard allows. “But she wouldn’t be agent-ing here.”

Jarvis takes the glass with a small smile. “Cheers.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Angie interrupts, slinging her arms over both of their shoulders. “This is a party. Are you two gonna keep mooning over each other, or are we going to drink?”

“I think you already know my answer to that,” Howard retorts.

* * *

 

It turns out Jarvis wasn’t lying.

Angie drinks them all under the table.

* * *

Howard hits the body mass of the target dead center.

Kidnapping averted. He throws his hands up in the air, because _victory_ , and accidentally shoots the roof. So that’s probably not one of his brightest ideas ever.

“No _no_!” Jarvis exclaims, carefully extricating the pistol from his hands. “That’s quite enough of that.”

“Killjoy,” Howard says. “You saw that, though, right? You’re going to tell Peggy you saw that?”

“I’ll consider it.” Jarvis sniffs. “You missed the heart.”

“Now you’re just nitpicking.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Jarvis settles against the wooden table they use to keep ammo. “Howard. Miss Carter mentioned something to me, at Angie’s party.”

“Did she now?” Howard bares his teeth. “Don’t suppose it was that she finds me devilishly charming?”

“Perish the thought,” Jarvis replies. “No. She wanted to know if we – that is, you and I – were involved.”

“In a bank heist?” Howard guesses.

Jarvis levels him with a completely disdainful glower. Why is it that the British are so damn good at that?

“With each other.”

“Oh. That.” Howard waves his hand in the air, brushing all the implications away like cobwebs. “She might have run that one by me a while back.”

“You didn’t think to mention it?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Other things on my mind.”

Jarvis reaches out and taps the side of Howard’s head. “It does get quite busy up there, doesn’t it?”

“On a good day,” he agrees. “Peggy likes to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Jarvis hums. “I’m glad she did.”

That gets a start out of him. Wearily, Howard asks, “You are?”

“I am.” He shoves up off the table and takes a step closer towards Howard. “I’ve thought about it before. Back in London. And France. And Bulgaria.”

“What, exactly did you think about?”

“You’re not really the commitment type.”

Icily, Howard says, “Well caught.”

Jarvis laughs. “I guess I’m not either. My marriage is in shambles.”

“That wasn’t your fault.” If anything, Howard feels like it’s his, for all the times he told Peggy to get Jarvis to tag along.

“No. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just was.” Jarvis steps in even closer. He says, “Do you think about us? About me?”

Howard eyes him. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I am doing no such thing.”

“No?” Howard fists his hand in the front of Jarvis’s suit, and Jarvis spares a split second of despair for the wrinkles it will surely develop, because he’s always been the fussy kind. But that second doesn’t last, because he brings his bright, questioning eyes up to meet Howard’s, and fists the front of his shirt right back.

“Your move.”

“Are we playing chess?” Howard asks. He can feel the challenge sparking under his skin. “You know I’d win.”

They’re leaning into each other, mouth’s dancing close, but not quite touching. Howard can taste Jarvis’s breath on his lips.

Jarvis murmurs, “It was a decent shot.”

He sways closer still, and oh.

The _kiss_.

Jarvis’s mouth against his make Howard feel like he’s Nikola Tesla, alternating currents flowing through his veins. Which is ridiculous, because then he’d be dead, and it’s a dumb metaphor, but it’s also the best way he knows how to describe the way that what lances between them feels like lightning.

And not just that; it’s thunder, it’s drowning, it’s all of those things that sound so stupid in books and films and the _Captain America Adventure Hour_. It’s about ten years of waiting, of wondering if the way he touched Jarvis’s arm in that London pub ever could have been something more.

It _could_ , Howard thinks.

It _can_.

He fits their bodies closer, and never mind if he’s trying to devour Jarvis whole.

Personal space probably isn’t that important anyway.


End file.
